Recovery from Training

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give a talk on recovery and training for speed to a group at Active Running training for the Around the Bay 30km race. ATB is the oldest annual running race in North America having begun in 1894. Here are my thoughts on recovery.

Recovery was a great topic for me to discuss for a couple reasons. Firstly, I had to have a conversation with one of my clients about it only a couple weeks before so the topic was fresh in my mind. Secondly, recovery is something that I ignored for most of high school much to my detriment. While I was in great shape I often performed poorly because fatigue masks fitness.

Shortly before I entered my final season of high school XC my mom found me a used copy of Lore of Running 3^rd edition by Dr. Timothy Noakes (it’s now in its 4^th Ed.). What a great find! After reading the same information month after month in magazines I was beginning to think I knew everything there was to know about running. However, LOR had 800+ pages on the science of running and great anecdotes too.

What really stood out to me was the part on overtraining. This was a term I had never heard of until then. I always thought the harder the training the better. But as I looked over the list of symptoms and discovered that I had experienced most of them I knew things had to change. But, rather than continue on with how to spot overtraining – which is a poorly defined term – I’d like to discuss how to maximize recovery.

In order to maximize recovery one needs to think about recovery on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and even a multi-year basis. All of these are useful for recovering both physical and psychological qualities. Training hard is important, but all your gains occur while you’re recovering.

If you’re one of the fittest people on the planet then you’ll focus your training on the Olympic Games and have years where you’re training harder and with more specific training versus other years training relatively easier and focussing on more general physical qualities. Most of us aren’t ever going to be at that level, so we can step back to thinking about yearly recovery. Yearly recovery involves taking one or two 2-4 week blocks during the year where training is reduced or eliminated or one engages in other fitness modalities. Something like this isn’t necessary for the general fitness enthusiast, but is a must for a competitive athlete. On a monthly basis recovery can take the form of an unloading week every 3-6 weeks where the volume and/or intensity is reduced. Not all my general fitness clients train hard enough to need these, but they’re great for working on exercise technique.

The most detailed part of the talk involved weekly and daily recovery. Weekly recovery involves harder and easier training days as well as complete rest days or even switching to a different activity. What we want to be aware of is providing balance to the autonomic nervous system. For those of us who enjoy training for the endurance sports we need to perform some high intensity activities that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. These activities are also great for stimulating growth hormone and testosterone production while minimizing cortisol production thus improving or maintaining body composition and aiding in recovery. For those who enjoy speed and power sports you need to perform some low intensity activities that stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. 

Daily recovery involves focussing on nutrition, sleep, and relaxation. When we work out exercise causes breakdown on muscle tissue and temporarily decreases fitness. It's during the recovery period where all the results occur.

For nutrition focus on eating whole foods such as fruit, vegetables, and lean protein and drink plenty of water. While older sources have deemed it a must to eat a meal within 15-60 min after exercise recent research is beginning to show that good nutrition over a 24 hour period is much more important. So, if you ate a large meal a couple hours before your workout or competition and you don’t feel hungry right after you don’t have to worry about getting in an immediate recovery meal. On the other hand, if you ate well before your workout/competition or you have multiple workouts/competitions that day eating a meal immediately after would be a wise decision.

Sleep is also very important. Most often 8 hours of sleep a night is recommended, but some may need more or less. It’s important to experiment. While sleeping the body moves in and out of light and deep sleep (REM) with each cycle lasting approximately 90 min. Waking up in the middle of a cycle leaves one feeling terrible even if the total length of sleep was fairly long. One of my runners recently mentioned that he had been going to bed 30 min earlier, but it had made him feel worse. Play around with sleep lengths to find the optimal length of sleep. Naps are also great! Usually sleeping for 10-20 min will leave you feeling rested, whereas 30-45min might leave you feeling terrible. Also, to aid in getting to sleep quickly it’s beneficial to turn off all electronics 30-60 min before bed. The blue light from television and computer screens stimulates wakefulness due to its effect on the pineal gland. I’ve downloaded F.lux onto my computer, which reduces the amount of blue light my computer emits at night.

Other recovery modalities that you may find useful are ice baths, massage, foam rolling, and the use of compression wear. A study from a couple years ago also showed that focussing on diaphragmatic breathing for 45 min after exercise increased the hormone melatonin, which is often taken by individuals as a sleep aid. My favourite recovery modality is foam rolling, which has been shown to decrease delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).

In conclusion, recovery can be enhanced through eating whole foods, getting lots of sleep, massage/foam rolling, taking ice baths, wearing compression wear, and taking recovery periods. Good recovery is necessary for maximizing performance.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness

Indirectly Improving Running Technique

Recently I ran a workshop on functional training for runners. The goal of the workshop was to teach runners how to use supplementary training to reduce injuries as well as improve performance. While I felt running technique was important to both of these issues I didn’t want to talk about running specific drills or how to coach good running technique.

For the most part I haven’t coached running technique, although I intend to do more of it from now on. The problem was that when I first started coaching I didn’t know enough about coaching running technique, so what I was teaching wasn’t always correct. When I realized my mistakes I decided to delve a little deeper into the research and the practices of top coaches. By not coaching running technique though I was able to learn that it could be improved by other means. I learned from Athletic Body and Balance by Gray Cook that there are three tiers to sporting performance: fundamental movement, strength, and skill. It’s important to work on all of them, but interestingly improving the first two can have great effects on the third. 

Improving Movement Quality

Most of what I do for improving running technique has nothing to do with technique drills or telling my runners, “Do this” or “Don’t do this.” Sometimes, no matter how much coaching we give a runner they keep running the same way or revert back to their natural technique when fatigued. If a runner is able to change her technique is she fighting her natural biomechanics thereby increasing fatigue and risking injury?

First what we need to do is ask ourselves, “Why doesn’t our runner run properly?” If her preconceived notions about how to run are incorrect, then coaching works well. We need to also ask whether or not she has the mobility to get into the positions we ask of her. Does she have the stability to control her mobility? This is where I use Gray Cook’s Functional Movement Screen, which allows me to look at fundamental movement patterns.

Improving Strength and Conditioning

Once we take care of fundamental movement quality a lot of the running technique flaws may take care of themselves. Concurrently we should look at the runner’s strength and conditioning. Is the runner strong enough to produce and maintain good technique? For this I use gym exercises such as variations of squats, lunges, deadlifts, rows, chin-ups, presses, and Olympic lifts as well as plyometrics and throws. Then I use hill running to bridge the gap to running.

Coaching Technique

While we’re improving movement quality and strength we need to teach the basics of good running technique. There’s a lot of bad information out there, so spend a lot of time learning from many sources. Running Biomechanics and Exercise Physiology Applied in Practice by Bosch and Klomp is a great resource. If you’re really bold read Human Locomotion by Michaud.

In summary teaching running technique is great, but it’s important to develop good movement quality and strength at the same time. 

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness

Fun with Trigger Points Part 1: Leg Numbness

According to Travell and Simons a trigger point is “a highly irritable localized spot of exquisite tenderness in a nodule in a palpable taut band of muscle tissue.” Often referred to as knots, they can range in size from the size of a pinhead to the size of a pea according to Clair Davies in The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook. If your fingers are sensitive enough you can feel them, which is something I have a poor ability to do unfortunately. Trigger points have a distinctive pain referral pattern either locally or more distant. In the case of a latent trigger point you don’t know you have a problem until the trigger point is pressed. According to Davies, trigger points are caused by overuse of a muscle, trauma, postural stress, and poor work habits.

I highly suggest that everyone purchases and reads Davies’ book. Not only does it show where trigger points are located and their pain referral patterns, but it also tells you the activities that commonly cause trigger points to individual muscles. Triggerpoints.net is also a great resource.

Symptoms

By far the worst trigger point I’ve ever suffered from was in the gluteus minimus. Most of the time I didn’t feel anything, but after long car rides I would sometimes feel pain and numbness down the side of my right leg with the worst symptoms occurring in my shin.

Treatment

After many years of this I learned about trigger points and was able to treat this. When I started my massage I had no symptoms, so things got bad for a few days. For the most part I’m fine now, but occasionally it comes back during rapid stretch of this muscle. For exercise I perform more hip external rotation exercises such as clam shells on the right side to strengthen this muscle. In addition, I foam roll my gluteus medius regularly. Activities to that could aggravate my symptoms would be rotational sports such as golf, tennis, and hockey.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness

Functional Training Workshop for Runners

I'm excited to announce that in a few weeks I'll be delivering a workshop at my gym on using supplemental exercise to improve performance and reduce the risk of injuries for runners.

Description: Jonathan Pratt has been a running coach for 10 years at West Ferris and has been running for 16 years. This workshop will focus on using supplementary exercise to reduce the risk of injury and improve health and performance. Topics include …

Foam Rolling and Trigger Points

            Mobility of the Ankles, Hips, and Thoracic Spine

            Stability of the Core and Hips

            Using Strength to Improve Performance

            Providing Balance to the Autonomic Nervous System

            Bodyweight and Free Weight Exercises

Location: Pratt’s Pro Fitness at 2689 Trout Lake Road at Inside Out Chiropractic. The entrance is behind Nipissing Windows and Siding.

Dates: Saturday February 8 and February 15

Time: 2:30-4PM

Cost: $10/person

Registration: Please register through email to jp.ppf@hotmail.com. Due to space constraints a maximum of 10 people will be able to attend at any one time, so book early. 

Stay fit,

Joanthan Pratt

Greater Strength Equals Greater Function … Sometimes

Training for strength is a fantastic endeavour for everyone regardless of their health and fitness goals. Strength training enhances one’s ability to perform activities of daily living, improves body composition, and improves athletic qualities such as speed, agility, and jumping ability.

However, I was recently reminded that being strong doesn’t always carry over to improved movement quality. Watch from a minute onward as 76-year old Roy Mason deadlifts 529 lbs! While I wish I could lift that kind of weight I’d rather be able to move freely than have to shuffle along. I should also add that one can have a high degree of cardiovascular fitness and move poorly as well.

When I train myself or my clients developing strength is important as well as developing quality movement. Everyone can improve their movement quality even high level athletes. We start by foam rolling to improve muscle tissue quality. This temporarily improves muscle extensibility. Next we perform mobility work for the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine as well as stability work for the hips, lumbar spine, and scapular region. Following this isolated work we then work on integrating these exercises into basic movements such as squatting and lunging. That’s 15min out of a 60min session just for improving movement quality.

I measure movement quality through the Functional Movement Screen.

Now it’s time for developing qualities such as strength, power, and hypertrophy. But, this doesn’t mean that we’re not improving movement quality. Movements such as squatting, deadlifting, lunging, pushing, and pulling as emphasised instead of focusing on isolated muscles. In addition, as one recovers from performing a taxing movement such as a deadlift she works on improving movement quality with an easier exercise such as those from the warm-up.

The deep squat: A movement that most people lose over time.

Strength training is important for improving health and fitness, but basic movement quality must be addressed too. Fortunately, it’s easy to develop both without sacrificing one or the other. 

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness

General Conditioning for Runners

In the previous piece I provided a number of ways for developing qualities specific to a race. However, specific training is too tiring to perform on a daily basis and may not work on your strengths and weaknesses.

This brings me to general training. General training provides a foundation for specific training thereby allowing us to handle higher volumes of specific training in later phases. The most general training we can perform is to enhance movement quality, which consists of mobility and stability work. The next level involves training the general qualities of running: endurance, speed, and strength. This piece will focus on endurance or general conditioning. While general conditioning can take the form of any exercise(s) that elevate your heart rate for a considerable time I’ll be sticking solely to discussing running workouts.

Option 1: Short to moderate length runs at a low intensity. Training at 55-75% of maximum heart rate comprises over 80% of the training time of elite athletes across all endurance sports (Seiler and Tonnessen, 2009). According to Ultimate MMA Conditioning by Joel Jamieson (2009) these sessions develop the aerobic system by increasing mitochondrial density and capillarization of the slow twitch fibres and by increasing the volume of the left ventricle in the heart.

Paula Radcliffe was known for running regular 150 mile weeks

Option 2: Long Runs. Long runs develop the ability to use a higher percentage of fat as a fuel source in addition to achieving the benefits from option 1. While it was once thought that runs of roughly two hours or more recruited fast twitch muscle fibres this is no longer the case. It’s now believed that the FT fibres convert their glycogen stores to lactate and transport them to slow twitch fibres where the lactate is used as a fuel source. Regardless, long runs have some positive adaptations to fast twitch muscle fibres. The long run is necessary for competing in the marathon and half marathon, but its use at shorter distances – especially the middle distances – has been debated. Developing the ability to burn fat at a high rate interferes with the ability to burn glycogen at a high rate. It’s usually better to stick to higher weekly mileage in this case than to have a long run. Still, one of the greatest 800 m runners of all time Peter Snell was well noted for running 22 milers.

            800-1500m: 60-90 min

            5km-HM: 90-120 min

            Marathon: 2-3 hours

Option 3: Easy Runs with Variations. This is a fun way to spice up an easy run. By adding in some faster running for very short durations you can make an easier transition to harder training in later phases. I now use this method for most runs in my introductory phase of two to four weeks. These workouts can also be used in later phases so long as you can recover for harder workouts. All of these options work regardless of the event you’re training for; this is after all general training.

            15sec at 1500m pace every 3-5min

            25sec at 3000m pace every 3-5min

            30sec at 5km pace every 3-5min

            45sec at 10km pace every 3-5min

            3-5 x 30sec hill repeats at 5km pace

            The last 5-15min of a run done gradually faster

Option 4: Run/Walk. I use to laugh at the idea of taking a walk break in the middle of an easy run until I realized it was a great way to come back from an injury. By running at a faster pace for a brief period and then taking a walk break I could elevate my heart rate to 120-150 bpm for an hour without too much stress on my legs. In recent months I’ve become fascinated with the methods of Mihaly Igloi who back in the 1950s trained Olympic medalists and world record holders through daily interval training. He would have his runners run for distances of 100-400 m with short jogs and walk breaks thereby elevating the heart rate to above 120 bpm for three hours.

1-3min comfortably hard with a walk or jog break until your heart rate drops to 120 bpm for the same length as an average easy run

Option 5: Cross Training. Joel Jamieson’s book that I referenced above is an excellent source for developing the energy systems through a variety of methods. If you’re frequently injured, currently injured, or coming back from an injury his book is a fantastic resource.  

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness

Preventing Hamstring Strains

Hamstring strains are a common sports injury. So far the research has focused mostly on hamstring strengthening exercises, however I believe that maintaining healthy hamstrings requires a multifactorial approach. In order to prevent hamstring injuries one should work on strength, flexibility, posture, and motor control.

Derek Redmond at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona was a favourite in the 400 m until injuring his hamstring in the semi-final.

According to a recent review all hamstring strains occur during high speed running (Guex and Miller, 2013). While there is some debate over which part of the running stride the injury occurs, Guex and Miller focused their discussion around injuries during the terminal swing phase of the running stride. The terminal swing phase occurs when the lead leg is swinging back toward the body in preparation for ground contact. During this phase the hamstrings are contracting at their fastest while being elongated by 9-12%.

The aftermath of a medial hamstring tear

Hamstring Strength Exercises

Guex and Miller (2013) suggest that the key to avoiding hamstring strains is to perform hamstring exercises at greater than 80% load from about 80 degrees hip flexion. They realize that this is difficult to do in practice, so combining a variety of hamstring exercises may suffice. Some good choices are variations of the deadlift (both bilateral and unilateral), hamstring curl, and pull-through.

The Romanian Deadlift trains the hip extension function of the hamstrings and glutes. This exercise should only be performed with instruction from a qualified trainer.

The Valslide Leg Curl trains the hip extension and knee flexion function of the hamstrings with the glutes extending the hips.   

Glute Strength Exercises

Another viewpoint comes from the works of Vladimir Janda and Shirley Sahrmann. Janda said, “He who treats the site of pain is often lost.” Sahrmann said, “When a muscle is injured, look for the weak synergist.” Both concluded that a weak gluteus maximus led to hamstring dominance. Thus, no matter how strong the hamstrings are they could become strained if the glutes aren’t assisting with hip extension.

The idea of weak glutes coincides with my own experiences. My hamstrings used to be sore for several days after every Monday interval session in grade 12 XC running. Hamstring curls worked for a while, but it wasn’t until I began performing isolated glute training that I began to notice something more permanent. For glute training exercises check out my post The Importance of Developing the Glutes.

Tight Hamstrings

Having short or stiff hamstrings may also lead to hamstring strains. Before you go about overstretching your hamstrings though make sure they’re indeed short. Interestingly, my wife has tremendous flexibility, but her hamstrings often feel tight.

Tight Hip Flexors

Having shortened or stiff hip flexors inhibits the function of the glutes and anteriorly tilts the pelvis. This places both the glutes and hamstrings in a stretched position thereby decreasing their function. Stretching as well as foam rolling of the hip flexors can be performed.

Poor Posture

While muscle activity can have an effect on posture, posture can also have an effect on muscle activity. I won’t elaborate too much on how to use this method as I’ve just recently started performing postural drills on myself. If you have an anterior pelvic tilt, spending time in a neutral spine position can decrease the tension in the hip flexors while restoring it to the hamstrings and glutes. In addition, the hamstrings and glutes no longer have to work from that stretched position.

Poor Motor Control

Gray Cook – creator of the Functional Movement Screen – has done a lot to teach us about muscle coordination (i.e. motor control). When we develop an anterior pelvic tilt it causes us to shift our weight forward leaving us with the lower back, hamstrings, and/or calves feeling tight. This would give us a poor active straight leg raise and toe touch pattern. Fix the dysfunctional pattern and these muscles magically get longer.

Leg Lowering Progression (not sure why this wouldn't embed)

In summary, preventing hamstring injuries is a multifactorial approach involving strength, flexibility, posture work, and motor control training.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness